PRESS WATCH: "The reason we have offered Chris Stokes a new deal is because I think he’s an improver." Coventry City's Tony Mowbray

3 June 2015

Matt Joyce

The Sky Blues boss revealed that the club will enter talks to sign the former loanee on a permanent basis...

Coventry City boss Tony Mowbray revealed to the Coventry Telegraph that the club will be in talks to sign Chris Stokes when the defender returns from his honeymoon.

The 24-year old, who got married last week, made 16 appearances on loan with City last season and scored in the 2-1 win over MK Dons at the Ricoh Arena.

Mowbray is keen to sign the former Forest Green defender as he believes that Stokes will only build on the vast improvements he showed at the back end of the campaign.

“I openly said to Chris after the first few weeks when I arrived at the football club that he was having a difficult time,” said Mowbray.

“He’d come from non-League and I had a few goes at him after games because he made one or two mistakes that were quite costly to the team.

“But the reason we have offered him a new deal is because I think he’s an improver, really. I think he was probably one of our better players in the last three or four games and showed me he’d taken great strides; that he’d listened well and worked very hard on the training ground.

“His physical stats were immense with the work-rate and effort he puts into everything he does and because he was improving and getting better I felt that if that is hopefully a continued line, where does that stop?

“That’s why I thought it was worth trying to keep him at the club to see where that would stop with the coaching and advice given to him. He's on his honeymoon at the moment so we're in no rush to get a deal done.”